


Records

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7864336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some plans take longer than one hunt to figure out.</p><p>Takes place during season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Records

The pages of the yellow legal pad are becoming battered, a testament to sharp turns spent rolling around in the backseat of the Impala and frequent bouts of gently being stuffed under Sam’s pillow when the timing isn’t right. Sam documents, his heart more and more battered, more and more written on, impressed upon, and he nods his head. “Yeah, no, got it,” he says and his voice is too calm and too collected. His writing is too legible. But, then, if it can’t be read later, all of it will have been for nothing, all of the dog-eared drudgery, line after line after line. 

Yellow, disgusting lines, like those of the road. There’s an irony in there that makes Sam shake his head at himself as the ink stains his hand like the slickness of oil. He is covered. He is claimed.

His hand aches near the knuckle from holding a pen with consistency, with grace he was never afforded that probably comes from the dark and demonic powers still lurking inside of him somewhere not-even-all-that-deep. He writes when Dean’s ready to talk, quickly, but with a subtlety that won’t scare Dean away. He holds the pen against the paper when he thinks he should elaborate for Dean, for future clarity, but never quite can. There won’t be any going back; the Crossroads demon made that very clear. It would help if Dean were less cryptic, or at least less jocular, but none of the walls he put up over a lifetime seem to want to fall to ruin just yet.

“That’s everything,” Dean says finally, and the pen would have slipped out of Sam’s grip and fallen to the ancient carpet if he wasn’t so steady, if he wasn’t a stubborn asshole like his father before him. It shouldn’t _be_ everything. Normally, it wouldn’t be everything. There’s an injustice of monumental proportions going on, and it’s all Dad’s fault. 

It’s Dad’s fault normal means sharp turns and strange, musty bedding to shove themselves under. Dad put them somewhere (so many somewheres!) Dean never cares to leave. Dad left them scraps Dean turned into cornerstones.

And it’s bad enough Dean wants to visit those places, physically and metaphorically, but now it’s just going to be Sam. He didn’t erect a single monument, but that won’t matter. When Dean is gone he’ll still have to inhabit the church halls of rest stops and convenience stores and anywhere they supply ammo. He’ll still have to be A Winchester, whatever the hell that means.

Ruby caught him crying and didn’t know how to react, staring for a good minute before Sam even realized she was there. “FUCK!” he called out in surprise, then followed it up with: “Fuck you, Ruby!”

But she’d done something way scarier than sneaking up, way scarier than revealing those stupid black eyes. 

She chose to act on her humanity again instead. If she could just be _cold_ , he’d know what to do with her, where to categorize her. If she could just stop showing passion or a desire to save him, it’d be copacetic. 

“I’m not the one leaving you behind, remember,” she reminded instead, watching him blow his nose on the wad of cheap toilet paper she’d brought him. “I’m the one who’s working with you.”  


It doesn’t make sense, that Dean never even grabs him cheap toilet paper from a bathroom. It doesn’t make sense that a demon does. Sam shoves the imbalance under a pillow in his mind, metaphorically. It’s nothing new, as far as Dean goes, and he can’t acknowledge Ruby as something new. That wouldn’t be fair to Dean, or to any of those monuments.

They should have a house. Maybe they should each have their own house. There should be something more than black eyes that understand red ones. There should be something more than notes about his brother’s wishes, his brother’s few, stupid possessions. 

If it was cancer or something, if Sam was surrounded by _friends_ , a _mom_ , and hospitals weren’t some forbidden prison he couldn’t get away from fast enough but were actually a place where they had _some_  sort of belonging, if that was how Dean was going to go, that would be something that would make _some fucking sense_.

But all Sam has is endless yellow lines and hands that won’t wash clean. All he has is a final Christmas at a convenience store that is _still_  the most traditional they’ve ever gotten. 

All he has is Ruby. If they don’t find Lilith...they won’t have anything. Scraps of paper flying in the wind. A car that could rust if it fucking wanted to. An actual lifetime of bar tabs and credit card debt with no one to find if Sam never stops running, cause he’ll have no one to leave it to.

“The whole list, huh?” Ruby asks, reaching for the pad. He hands it over after a moment of sheer hesitation.  


“It’s pathetic,” she finally says, and Sam nods. “We better find Lilith, Sam.” He looks up to meet her gaze. There’s something in it he trusts despite himself, something that really is as human as anyone, or at least as human as Sam.

“And why’s that?” he snarks, keeping a blanket of coolness around him, a small barrier of spite. He almost wants to reach out and hold her hand, like something about that might possibly be helpful.  


“Then you won’t need to worry about this idiot’s _possessions_ , or his _wishes_.”

Sam doesn’t yank the pad back right away, though he almost wants to. He knows she means it in the nicest way possible, and that’s the most wrenching part.

When she hands it back, the fingertips of her vessel have attracted a little bit of ink.

Funny, though. She doesn’t look claimed. 

His hands are clean. 

Except, really, they aren’t. They can never be.


End file.
